he thought his very footmen watched his steps as if to count how long
before they followed his bier. So, breaking from all roughly, with a
shake of his head and a laconic assertion of business in London, he got
into his carriage,--his own old bachelor's lumbering travelling-
carriage,--and bade the post-boys drive fast, fast! Then, when he felt
alone,--quite alone,--and the gates of the lodge swung behind him, he
rubbed his hands with a schoolboy's glee, and chuckled aloud, as if he
enjoyed, not only the sense, but the fun of his safety; as if he had done
something prodigiously cunning and clever.

So when he saw himself snug in his old, well-remembered hotel, in the
same room as of yore, when returned, brisk and gay, from the breezes of
Weymouth or the brouillards of Paris, he thought he shook hands again
with his youth. Age and lameness, apoplexy and treason, all were
forgotten for the moment. And when, as the excitement died, those grim
spectres came back again to his thoughts, they found their victim braced
and prepared, standing erect on that hearth for whose hospitality he paid
his guinea a day,--his front proud and defying. He felt yet that he had
fortune and power, that a movement of his hand could raise and strike
down, that at the verge of the tomb he was armed, to punish or reward,
with the balance and the sword. Tripped in the smug waiter, and
announced "Mr. Parchmount."

"Set a chair, and show him in." The lawyer entered.

"My dear Sir Miles, this is indeed a surprise! What has brought you to
town?"

"The common whim of the old, sir. I would alter my will."